I'm only better off because I'm not eating Top Ramen in my college dorm anymore
I eat Ramen at least twice a week and I've been out of college for 20 years. Believe me, it doesn't get any better after getting out of college. I had more spending money in college than I do now.

Believe me, it doesn't get any better after getting out of college. I had more spending money in college than I do now.

While I agree that expenses quickly rise to match the new salary, there must be other considerations here
If you had simply graduated and got a job, you'd have more spending money -- I don't see how you could not.

Did you get a large mortgage? Had kids? Are you supporting poor relatives? All of the above?
Is your job an unpaid internship?

I admit that the spending money hasn't gone up nearly as much as I expected, but it is certainly more than I had in college or grad school. You must be omitting some rele

Believe me, it doesn't get any better after getting out of college. I had more spending money in college than I do now.

If you had simply graduated and got a job, you'd have more spending money -- I don't see how you could not.

I know people that make 5x or 10x what they made in college and still have less spending money. Either they had a bunch of kids and a divorce, made colossal spending blunders (sure I can afford a mortgage on my 250k house with no down payment on my 70k salary!), or simply have a hole in their pocket and thus spend every cent they earn on stupid stuff the moment they get any (I can't afford a house or rent in a non-slum location, but oh look is payday and oooh shiny!).

colossal spending blunders (sure I can afford a mortgage on my 250k house with no down payment on my 70k salary!)

What the hell would you be blowing money on that you could not afford a house that runs only $250k on a whole $70k/yr? That's a good chunk above the national median income and not that much above the national median house price.

For comparison, I make a little under $50k/yr living in one of the most expensive cities in the country, apparently am making about the median income for people in this city (and in this city in my profession, and in my profession nationally, and just people nationally... wow, how di

Yeah...if you decide to get hitched and especially if you decide to have one or more kids...well, there goes your disposable income. But hey, life is full of trade offs, and you have to decide what is important in your value system.

Personally, I've never wanted kids...I like to have as much of my disposable income for me to enjoy and party with....I've not been much of one to want to be tied down to just one woman all my life...when there are so many out there.

But again...trade offs for everything. I guess it all boils down to what you want to do with your money and your life.

Whatever you choose....deal with the consequences, and try not to bitch too much about it...I don't guess there is much else any of us can do, eh?

But I do applaud you...if you DO choose to have kids...realize that you must (unless you are lucky and quite wealthy) make sacrifices...that's part of having kids and raising a family. You have to give up that spending money for yourself, AND, most importantly...your TIME.

While that's not a sacrifice I would be willing to make, hence, not wanting any kids....if you do choose to have them, then you have to be prepared to give up these things for them.

Yes, you will have less time and money if you have kids, but it's not an entirely fair comparison. You don't know how much happier or more fulfilled having kids will make you feel until you do (and isn't that a big part of why we do our hobbies?). For many of us (most of us, hopefully) the deal works out in our favor because we're happier than we would be if we had all that time and money to spend on our old hobbies. It's a net gain, but it's easy to present as a net loss because it's the unknown.

Except that's not a good meal on it's own. I sometimes use instant noodles, but I almost always throw out the "flavour" packet and add something less-processed -- frozen chopped vegetables are the easiest, but some chopped broccoli, fresh spinach, canned beans or chickpeas... anything's better!

We've both changed within our respective companies. I moved up and over for more pay and better coworkers, and she moved over to get a good change. We also bought a much bigger home in a better local city at the trough of the market and sold the old house only recently when it had increased in value 50% more, with good tenants in there for the year in between, and I just found a seventeen year old car that I've wanted since I was a teenager with only 6,400 miles on it. Her retirement portfolio also has recovered to pre-recession levels.

We've constantly lived below our means. That's why, when the housing market and economy tanked, we could afford to buy a house that was three times the size of the old one. Had we been living at our means we'd have been screwed.

Similar to you, I was able to find a better job in the same industry (generically, tech support) with a better environment (read: less stress), better pay, better hours, mildly better benefits, closer to home, against rush hour traffic, and quite flexible with regards to home life. The company my wife works for was gobbled up by a slightly larger competitor, receives better pay, has better hours, and better benefits now because of it despite being the same job in the same building.

Similar to you, I was able to find a better job in the same industry (generically, tech support) with a better environment (read: less stress), better pay, better hours, mildly better benefits, closer to home, against rush hour traffic, and quite flexible with regards to home life. The company my wife works for was gobbled up by a slightly larger competitor, receives better pay, has better hours, and better benefits now because of it despite being the same job in the same building.

Whether or not that has anything to do with our leadership in government at any level is up for serious debate.

And that's a major issue that the politicians face - when people are doing better they believe (rightly or wrongly) that it is because of their hard work but when they are worse off they blame the government for their woes. I think the government does not have as much of an effect on the fortunes of individual citizens as the people or the government believe.

Four years ago I was working at a place I thought was fantastic, and was happily married. My older step-son was working his way through second-year university, still needing some assistance from me. But Fate had some bad s*** in store for me.

Today, I am very happily separated, sole owner of my house (yeah, with the bank), and have an awesome girlfriend (and two more sorta-step-kids). And I'm working on contract at place that has its challenges, but is a much more comfortable situation then living in a Watership Down type of company. And older step-son graduated from engineering (with a B+ average!!!), got his iron ring, and just celebrated his first anniversary at a permanent job.

I've never heard that particular comparison, but I assume he means a company that is headed for failure with employees jumping ship...? Since Watership Down is based on a rabbit warren being destroyed and it's population escaping to find a new home...? Not sure, he may be making a reference to one of the more complex themes in the book, rather than the plot.

Watership Down was the name of the new warren that Bigwig, Fiver, and the rest founded after fighting off General Woundwart and stealing his women... er, I mean does. Sandleford Warren is the one that was poisoned and destroyed. So a Watership Down type of company must be a new company that forms by employees fleeing from an older dying company that then goes and recruits talent or clients from other, well established companies.

Maybe. Or it may be a reference to Efrafa, a warren run by Gestapo-like rabbits where the only way to leave was by death. That also figures prominently into the plot. But I don't know for sure. Regardless, the book is an awesome read.

This poll is related to the presidential election as a measurement of how our current administration has affected the lives of everyday people. Events completely unrelated to politics have had far more dramatic influence on my life than the president has over the course of the last four years. Sure this may not be true for everyone, and in the interest of fairness I should mention that I'm 22 and my life may fluctuate more than someone who has been sitting in the same office for the past decade.
Anyway, my

My net worth and family income are down by tens of thousands of dollars. But I'm better off. My in-laws moved to town (yes, this is positive; I have the most kick-ass in-laws in the world). I had my second kid. My son got interested in Lego. I moved to a new home closer to work and nature. I've had four all-expense paid trips to Hawai'i. I've written some music, read a few books, built some furniture, watched some interesting TV, lost 20 pounds, learned some cool stuff, met some neat people. Plus my wife's gotten really good at cooking. The list could go on. Yeah some shitty things have happened. Yeah, I've lost some good friends and family members. But life is what you make of it.

My net worth and family income are down by tens of thousands of dollars. But I'm better off. My in-laws moved to town (yes, this is positive; I have the most kick-ass in-laws in the world). I had my second kid. My son got interested in Lego. I moved to a new home closer to work and nature. I've had four all-expense paid trips to Hawai'i. I've written some music, read a few books, built some furniture, watched some interesting TV, lost 20 pounds, learned some cool stuff, met some neat people. Plus my wife's gotten really good at cooking. The list could go on. Yeah some shitty things have happened. Yeah, I've lost some good friends and family members. But life is what you make of it.

Since his wife's cooking is better he doesn't eat fast food much anymore thus he lost weight.
Maybe the improvement in her cooking has been that she now makes healthy meals.
Could also be that now that the food taste good he can be happy with a small portion instead of eating until full.

When you get really good at mastering techniques, tweaking recipes, inventing flavor profiles, butchering, and using fresh ingredients, you don't end up needing as much fat, carbs, salt, sugar, etc. And you get a lot more veggies, protein, fiber, that sort of thing. Example: I used to complain about skinless chicken (yummy fat juiciness was missing). Turns out, you can get skinless chicken just as juicy and tasty if you know what you're doing and have the time to practi

I an better off, but not because of Obama. I would have done that stuff anyways.

When I succeed, I succeed on my own. When there is failure, it's because the government has kept me down.

Seriously, though: politicians - president or congress - don't have much influence over the economy. They can't agree on a coherent policy without poking it so full of loopholes as makes it useless. Anymore, they can't even pass lasting legislation, and short term policies aren't going to impact the long term business cycle. To admit that would put a whole legion of pundits out of business, though, a

Unemployment rates stem from more variables then just the color of the tie of one guy in the white house. That being said, many businesses fail on their own accord; the recent economic downturn comes from greedy people borrowing too much money from other greedy people, who then needed to take handouts from skittish, panicky people.

There is actually a good amount of truth in that "tired fallacy." If you are a runner running a race, nothing I can do will help you run faster as only you can make yourself do that. But I can sure make you run slower if I whack you in the kneecap with a crowbar. Government is pretty much the same way.

Wow that is impressive... I don't know anyone that has come close to that. One of my former co-workers recently moved to take a job in another city. Despite the improvements he made on the house, the value had decreased drastically and he took a serious net loss. One of my other co-workers recently had to move because his kids were growing, but his house and yard were not. He bought a nicer house, but he still had a little bit of a net loss on his old house (although it was not near as bad as the other guy)

Depends entirely on how long he owned the home. I bought a house in Portland (OR) and sold it two years later for a 5% profit. That was in 2003, before the bubble burst. I bought my current house from a couple who had bought it in 1974. They made over 400% profit on it (believe me, they certainly didn't spend any money updating anything...). It's pretty much only people who bought and sold in the last decade who took a beating. Friends of mine that bought places in the mid-90s are sitting pretty. I e

Life was excellent and improving dramatically for me 4 years ago, and the time between October 2008 and April or May of 2009 was probably one of the best periods of my life. For part of that time I was unemployed, but other factors kept things very good for me.

Due to the death of someone who is more important to me than anyone else will ever realize died right about the time I was starting my current job. The period between June of 2010 and June of 2011 was probably the single most difficult year of my lif

In 2008, my household combined income was roughly $125k. I had a wife, a house, and a dog. We had car payments on two cars, had an HMO where I paid $20 to see a primary care doctor and $30 for a specialist, and I was a junior level sys admin. In 2012, my household combined income is in excess of $185k. I have a wife, a house, a dog, and a four month old son. I have car payments on two cars, have a welless healthcare plan where I pay absurd amounts for even the most basic of medical care, and am a senio

There's definitely a large difference in what Europeans and Americans feel is the 'center' of the political spectrum. I'd say that the center of the European spectrum is firmly planted in the left of the American spectrum. People labeled conservative in Europe are, at best, moderates, or left-leaners in the US. People in the US labeled liberal are probably more centrist in European politics.

This is probably the case.

Obama, however, has definitely cemented himself as a liberal socialist. He's made it clear that he wants a large, strong federal government that controls the resources and allocates them from those with to those without, in a massive redistribution scheme. He can't achieve what he wants, because the Congress won't go along with it, but his preference would be to have a highly taxed upper class, punished for their hard work and accomplishments, and a dependent middle and lower class, suckling at the government teat. Of course, this flies in the face of EVERYTHING that the US was founded upon - self-reliance, small federal government, states rights, personal freedoms.

This sounds like a Glenn Beck monologue:-p

Taxing the upper income earners more than the middle and (especially) lower brackets is a pretty moderate political position considering our current system of government. Otherwise we would either be desperately short on revenue or end up with a system of regressive taxation, which is both untenable and reprehensible. Progressive taxation is not a punishment, it's just a sensible method of optimizing revenue. People who can afford to pay more do so, and those who can't, don't. There are of course bad ways to implement this (such as our current clusterfuck of a tax code) but I'm not sure why so many people have such an issue with this basic concept.

Also, "states rights" is a loaded term, not useful in this context...perhaps localized government would be more appropriate...though it was pretty much settled in the first half of the 19th century that our federal government has ultimate supremacy over state government. I will grant you self-reliance and small federal government, but the founding fathers were really only concerned with personal freedoms for the rich, white, men who made up the "ruling" class at the time. =]

All that said, I don't believe the political spectrum to be linear, but more circular. People like to label the Nazis as right-wing, but in reality, their government was very socialist, however, they pulled nationalism from the right-wing. Hence, they belong on both sides of the spectrum, at some weird vortex where shitty people meet shitty policies.

Well, I agree that the political spectrum is certainly not all-encompassing, but it can be a useful tool. Nazism [wikipedia.org] is hard to categorize and does lie in a "weird vortex" as you say. However, in practice it was essentially a form of fascism, and (though they started out with a real socialist agenda) Hitler used a different definition of "socialism" than everyone else in the world.

A little over 4 years ago, I lost my job. I now have one.... so that is slightly better. However, I am making significantly less than I did with my previous employer. Having a job is better than none... I have a steady income, decent health insurance, I have payed off my car, and am slowly reducing student debt. However the pay stinks compared to my previous job and it is not enough to really aid me in working towards some goals I had set.

Four years ago I was in college and renting a place with a friend. Today, I'm employed and have my own place. I have less time for the things I loved back then, and I'm not sure that if I still did them, I would still love them. I'm not sure if I'm better off. I'm different, but probably not better.

I'm still in the same job, still at the same pay. I have a kid in college, which the GI bill which we paid into proudly proclaimed it would pay for, but turns out they only pay about 1/3. The cost of living has gone up by 3% a year according to the government, or about 15% per year according to the price of goods and services. Insurance has gone up by 70%, the assessed value of my house has gone up by 50%, the value of my house has stayed the same or gone down. I still drive the same car as 4 years ago. It

I'm better off because of my actions, and the general advancement of society and technology, not because of government policy. If the US government wasn't constantly printing up counterfeit dollars and loaning them to Wall Street banks at 0% interest, to be loaned back to the government for deficit spending, destroying the value of the US dollar in the process, I'd be much better off, as would all Americans without top-level connections.

In 2008 I was supposedly on top of the world, just got married, had a little kid, was in a job for 7 years where I had been promoted and earning big money. Fuck how it went wrong from there - I should never have left (hindsight eh?).With the exception of my last job (over a year ago now) I went through 4 jobs between then and now, only losing the first three through genuine redundancies where I was not the only person 'let go'

I got separated from my wife and son (due to job no.2 being the other end of th

Barring serious illness or death, most people are better off than they were 4 years ago because most people become better off as they get older (until the serious illness or death comes up). So the answer is predominantly "yes", even in a recession. Of course, politicians are not responsible for that and for a politician to imply that he is is basically lying.

Late 08, I had to take a 25% paycut due to shrinkage in my job sector and lack of work. Since then, my salary returned to normal levels, then increased by 20%. I got married, bought a home, traveled the world. I make about 1.7 times what I did at the peak of the recession.

I don't by any means attribute that all to the government... A lot of it had to do with making the right decisions at work, focusing, and general progression of life. However, the economy has improved significantly since then; the lending

Results are going to be better than average here due to the reader base. The average slashdot reader is a young IT professional who is burning some time while at work. A large proportion of us have begun to claw ourselves out of the "poor college kid" phase. Many of us are either just starting to get their first real income, or have combined a college degree and a couple years experience to leverage a significant income boost.

Still, it is nice to read that a bunch of us are doing well. Way to go us, keep up the good work!

Results are going to be better than average here due to the reader base. The average slashdot reader is a young IT professional who is burning some time while at work. A large proportion of us have begun to claw ourselves out of the "poor college kid" phase. Many of us are either just starting to get their first real income, or have combined a college degree and a couple years experience to leverage a significant income boost.

Still, it is nice to read that a bunch of us are doing well. Way to go us, keep up the good work!

I'm not so sure about that. IT workers, yes, but Slashdot dates from the dotCom Boom and much of the readership has been working for that long or longer.

Four years ago I was single, broke, underweight, depressed, living in the dorms, bored with and failing my classes, and had racked up thirty grand in student loan debt that I didn't know how to pay off. I played World of Warcraft to get through the day.

This year I am still single, still broke, still underweight, still depressed, sharing an overcrowded house, bored with my job, on house arrest for year for a car accident, and I owe a hundred grand in restitution that I don't know how to pay off. I play World of Warcraft to get through the day.

I don't see things improving anytime soon. I'll probably pick up drinking again once I am off of house arrest.

I feel like I'm much better off... Sure I downsized homes, from a 2,300 square foot apartment with household servants to a 350 square foot one. But it's the location, from Pune, India to Midtown Manhattan...

I've got a job that pays well enough to live in the heart of New York City instead of halfway around the world, and I'm a lot healthier and getting laid more than I was during most of my stay in India.

Four years ago I was in chemotherapy after my second bout with cancer (first was seven years ago). Things were looking grim. I couldn't work, I felt like crap because of all the drugs, and I was paying my medical bills out of savings.

Today I'm in good health, I married in February and we have twins due in December, I have an interesting job that pays well, and we just paid cash for a new minivan. Short of winning the lottery, I don't think life could be better.

I just wish that Obamacare had been around when I needed it. I would have $400k more than I have now. USA badly needs medical insurance reform and the Republicans certainly don't want to help.

Just to make it clear, I did have health insurance. But after my first bout with cancer the insurance company decided that cancer (of any type) would not be covered in the future, and almost tripled my premium for coverage of everything else. No other company would would give me coverage at a reasonable cost - one well known company quoted $1,900 per month if I paid the first $100,000 of claims per year.

My understanding of Obamacare is that premiums cannot be raised because of preexisting conditions. Hen

This was my second cancer. After the first one I became unable to get insurance that would cover cancer. No insurance company wants to take that sort of risk with a disease that often reappears some years later and requires very expensive treatment.

I was working at NYC in a finance media consultancy (making market predictions based on the public reporting of financials and on a statistical content analysis of the finance industry press). We had a bunch of big clients that were global financials.

We started to see really, really bad indicators in '07 and by '08 our big clients were starting to take hits, too. We lost a few big contracts as divisions were closed, deals were undone, and/or belts

Four years ago, my older sister and I were taking care of our aged mother and living in her retirement condo. My only "income" was Food Stamps plus small amounts of cash I earned house sitting for a friend. Now, Mom's passed away, and the condo is ours. I took early Social Security almost a year ago, giving me an income and lowering my food stamps, but on the whole, I'm better off. Please note that this has nothing to do with the economy as a whole, or the policies of the current Administration.

I'm finally allowed to buy health insurance (at any price), via Oregon's state-administered "high-risk pool". This was part of the Obama administration's health care reform package. The cost of the policy? A whopping $20 more than the lowest-priced no-mental-health, no-office-visit, deny-all-your-claims commercial option.

Yes, you read that right. I live in a supposed first-world country, make $85k per year as a damn-reasonable software engineer, and the biggest improvement in a year is that I now have access to basic health care services.

Hopefully this is a first stop on the way to total extinction of the health insurance industry. It's a large-scale humanitarian disaster.

Aahh... I think see what you did there -- an informal (and a demographically inaccurate) polling to determine the outcome of this year's Presidential race -- the assumption based on the classic knee-jerk voting scenario: If I'm better off than 4 years ago, my vote is for the incumbent; if I'm worse off, then my vote should be for his opponent.

4 years ago I was a senior tech at a University, My wife was a University Webmaster. While not rolling in it, we bumped $100k/yr or so, did the suburbia thing, 2 cars with notes, debt up to our eyeballs, a monthly budget of bills and whatnot around $5k and pretty much blew the rest on crap... living the typical American dream.

Then, we simply walked away. Simply put in our notices and said screw this mess. Dont get me wrong.. this isnt an indictment of those who live this life, it is that *we* decided not to live our lives spending 5/7th of it doing other peoples bidding, waking up to an alarm clock, living for the weekends, yada yada.

We took our money, paid our debts, started a very very small web biz, bought some land, bought some tools, built a small house and crazily, live with no debt, off the grid, with a monthly budget and income that puts us squarely under the poverty line.

We wake up when we damn well please, we work on our biz when we want, we wander around exploring when we want, we go fishing on Tuesday afternoons if we want, we laugh regularly when we ask each other what day it is... (ok I know hump day because of the Chive).

So.. better off? well... I like it better. So I guess the answer for me is yes, Im poor as a hell of a lot happier.

FWIW.. tomorrow is wood stove install day.. Im totally jazzed that we scraped up $500 for the stove and pipe and tomorrow I will be installing our winter heating, fired up by wood I cut last spring FTW:)

We took our money, paid our debts, started a very very small web biz, bought some land, bought some tools, built a small house and crazily, live with no debt, off the grid, with a monthly budget and income that puts us squarely under the poverty line.

I think of electricity as "the grid" but I suppose you are correct in that I do have internet powered by batteries and an inverter. I am working on ramping up, but for the last 9 months we have lived on a 400W inverter and 2 6-volt (series for 12v) golf cart batteries. We are charging with a gas generator and working toward solar. We run the gen a few hours a day to charge, or when I need saws or nail guns, and the rest of the time we run on the inverter. Our avg load while on batteries is ~100W with 2 laptops, a few cfl's, a wireless router and the cable modem. We just got a 2A/40A charger off craigslist which has really helped on gen gas/battery charging.

So thats how I post.

Side note.. got the wood stove installed just before a cold snap.. yay.

... just not financially. In fact, my cash cushion is gone, so now we live from paycheck to paycheck; good thing I have a stable (read salary, not hourly pay) income.I picked way better off because in the last four years I fathered two kids and there is nothing in this world worth more than that.

On a side note, living in Canada, it took me a while to understand the subtle hint about politics regarding this poll since not everything in the news revolves around politics here at the moment.Finally, my wife started working again, and with careful management, we'll be able to rebuild our cash cushion. The secret is not to live above your means. I still use an ancient CRT television and don't plan on updating since it works great. I haven't purchased new clothes in a long while since the ones I have still fit. Really, the only expenses we have are in order: mortgage, food, utility & entertainment bills (electricity, water, garbage, internet, netflix), property tax, gas, insurance. But having a loving wife and two kids at home: priceless, literally.

Deficits aren't a bad thing by nature. If no one took out loans there would be no business expansion, home mortgages, car loans, etc. The key is borrowing responsibly, which means as a percentage of your income (or in the case of a government, the national GDP). We're still better off than under Reagan or either Bush in that regard, and WAY better off than during the depression or WWII.

There would be business expansion. It would just happen at the rate of profits. You are correct about home mortgages and car loans.

The government doesn't borrow against the GDP. You borrow against your own income. In the case of the Federal government, it taxes. Technically the government could confiscate its people's assets, but those are assets, not GDP.

In fact, why the hell does everyone want to compare deficits/debt against GDP? There isn't a direct correlation, since there are taxes like Inherita

There would be business expansion. It would just happen at the rate of profits

I'm sure you know what a bond is, right? It's a loan. There are very few companies that have not either had a period of loss at some point, or required much more capital than they had available through profits (and didn't want to give up ownership of the company to get that capital). Many of those have only survived those lean times through borrowing. Without borrowing, at some point in their history almost every single bank, au

-see 2002 - 2008 and the budget deficit - the Reps CONTROLLED BOTH the Whitehouse AND Congress and went completely APESHIT with the spending

Sorry, but I couldn't let that slide, because the deficit increase under Obama is greater than all those years combined.

Just because you refuse to spend money, doesn't mean that you don't incur costs. Republicans have put us into perpetual austerity and/or unfunded debt obligations for a long time now, and infrastructure repairs and spending have been below inflation for decades, not the mention spending on public education and basic research. Meanwhile laws have been passed to allow the medical/law/finance/defense fields to gobble up large amounts of our GDP, while providing lower levels of utility per dollar if and when th

Yeah the guy obviously wouldn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. Click on the link he provided, and on the top of the table from which he summed numbers, it says: "In billions of budgeted dollars". I repeat, that's 795 billions. Only 3 orders of magnitude off (and his rounding is horribly wrong).

Obama did not start spending like a drunken sailor like your comment implies, the number of Federal Gov't employees has gone down under Obama, what happened was unemployment shot up due to the great recession so people who would normally be paying taxes are now getting unemployment benefits - it is more appropriate to look at the level of gov't spending and revenue seperately before and after Obama - but most people are too stupid to get this nuiance

Uh... You're pretty much the first person I've met who provided a link that refutes *his own* comments. According to your cited source, the cost of the wars cost $794,700,000,000 (794.7 billion) dollars. Note that there was an additional $496.8 billion dollars spent under the obama administration, that would not have been spent if we didn't go to war.

You're also dramatically skewing the debt increase. Factcheck.org has information on the matter, supporting your position that Obama has made some major increases in the deficit, but also countering your conclusion that democrats are the primary factor in the current deficit situation.

CBO’s assumptions did not factor in two recessions (2001, 2008), two wars and a slew of legislative changes from the Bush tax cuts to the Obama stimulus.

The difference between the projected surpluses and the actual deficits is $11.9 trillion over that 10-year period. Treasury concluded that Bush policies were to blame for 59 percent and Obama’s policies 12 percent. The rest — 29 percent — were what CBO calls “economic and technical changes,” mostly having to do with changing economic forecasts because of the recessions.

Treasury’s analysis was done by reviewing 36 CBO reports issued over the last 12 years: the biannual Budget and Economic Outlook and the CBO’s annual analysis of the president’s budget. Treasury accounted for the changes in CBO’s revenue and outlay projections during that time period to determine how far the original 2001 CBO projections had deviated and where the deviations had occurred.

Obama had the option to end it, Obama went instead for a surge in Afghanistan.

Speaking as a Canadian who has not quite forgiven y'all for dragging us into your little wars (under the "you're either with us or against us" BS), but once you're there, you can't just pick up and leave, so I don't see how Obama had a whole lot of choice there. (Same as in Iraq - Americans were on a bit of a "let's start random shite" kick last decade, weren't they?)

Now, for Guantanamo Bay, I think Obama either (a) is too cowardly to just pull the plug, or (b) there is something much darker going on down t

Most earmarks go to red states, and red states see more income tax money than they spend, I think you forget that. The democrats wanted to save the economy, so are you calling saving general motors, or investing in small business (SBA), and investing in new technology "pet projects"? I think you also forgot to remember that as part of the "grand bargain" there are drastic budget cuts in government this year thanks to obama and congress. Obama originally offered a higher than 1:1 level of spending cuts to ta